Insights to Power Social Good

Your Latest mSpiration- Quick mobile ideas to mSpire your nonprofit organization to change the world one text at a time.

Your nonprofit is going mobile-just in the nick of time! But how do you make mobile work, while becoming your organizations mobile rock star? On our new blog series we will be posting innovative, creative and downright awesome ways that mobile is being used so you can go turn those bystanders into supporters-in 160 characters or less!

We kicked off that webinar by busting a few mobile myths that we hear about frequently!

Myth:Only Millennials use mobile.

Fact: Our 2013 mGive Text Donation Study shows that baby boomers are the largest demographic group using text-to-donate. Angela Whaley, Director of Client Experience here at mGive, shared a couple of great stories during our webinar about Boomer adoption and behaviors (including one about her grandmother who has a new iPhone that she uses to text). Check out our webinar to learn more.

Myth: Text fundraising is only good for $5 and $10 donations.

Fact: 42% of respondents from our survey give more than $250 annually through multiple channels. Text campaigns are really more than a quick hit fundraising strategy. They are a way to acquire, engage and retain donors and supporters.

Need some more mobile proof? Here are a few quick facts that we talked about from our study.

86% of mobile donors rate their experience with text donations as excellent or good.

Outside research also shows that 97% of text messages are read and 87% are read within 15 minutes of receipt (what other channel offers those kind of open rates?).

Claudia Perrone, Marketing Specialist from Best friends Animal Society (BFAS), joined the conversation to talk about how her organization has leveraged mobile’s superior open rates to learn more about their mobile members. They built solid donor profiles and are able to highly segment and target their mobile community into groups ranging from 7 to 3,000.

Myth: You may have heard that mobile is only good for anonymous donations.

Fact: Mobile is only anonymous if you don’t ask your supporters for information.

By using segmentation and frequent text messaging, BFAS has seen their mobile retention rates soar to 96% by years three and four, compared to an industry overall retention rate of 41%.

So, how exactly did they use mobile? You’ll have to listen to webinar for all the insider tips, but here is a general overview:

They started by integrating mobile.

They use banner ads, website donation widgets and a mobile subscription signup on their homepage.

Then they used mobile polling to learn more about the member’s preferences and interests.

Finally with all this great information, they built those solid donor profiles and created specialized campaigns.

Due to this experience, they plan to continue growing their text program using the four principles of engagement and fundraising.